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Sometimes when I am given a book, I have no recollection of how it ended up on my wishlist. That’s the case with the book I have just finished reading, ‘This is how it always is’ by Laurie Frankel. I had never heard of her, and I don’t know anyone who has read and recommended this. I was given it for Christmas last year, and had entirely forgotten whatever I read about it that inspired me to request it.
And what an incredible book it is!
It’s about a family in the United States. Rosie and Penn are the parents; she’s an emergency room doctor, clearly very good at her job, and he’s a writer who works from home and does most of the domestic work around the house. The book opens with a chapter heading telling us that, once upon a time Claude was born. Then it goes on to explain that Claude had four older brothers: Roo, Ben, Oriel and Rigel (the latter two being twins).
It then takes us to the prelude of Claude’s conception, followed by the actuality of it - with, thankfully, no gratuitous detail, although plenty is implied. And no, it’s not that kind of book - but it demonstrates Rosie and Penn’s relationship extremely well.
And it’s a great partnership. They have a complex and busy life of parenting, much of which falls on Penn’s shoulders, but Rosie does as much as she can, juggling time and children to and from various places, sharing the shopping and the cooking and other chores in a remarkably amicable and surprisingly effective way.
There’s a lot of humour in the book, too, partly in the choice of words to describe a familiar situation. I chuckled aloud a couple of times, and smiled in appreciation at the style in several other places. The author clearly knows about parenting; I was surprised to learn that she actually has only one child rather than several. Rosie and Penn live in a state of semi-organised chaos, and they’re very accepting and broad-minded, with a policy of saying ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’ wherever possible.
It turns out that this is a very good thing, because Claude is different in a way that would be a spoiler to state (even though it’s in the blurb on the back). This is why there’s so much about his conception and early years - he’s bright and talkative, and it’s not until he’s five that his parents realise that he’s not just quirky and unusual, like at least two of his brothers - there’s something deeper which needs to be expressed, and accepted, and worked through.
It’s an issue which I didn’t know a great deal about, and I learned quite a bit along the way. Not that it’s directly educational - or if it is, it’s so well done that I didn’t notice. Instead, much of the story is related through the telling of a fairy tale at bedtime, through snippets into the lives of the various family members, and - for a few months - through two of them spending time in Thailand.
I found the book extremely engaging, difficult to put down at times, and written with just the right balance of light-heartedness and poignancy. The characters all felt like real people with real problems. I did balk slightly at throwaway comments about ‘all’ women hating their bodies at some point, and ‘all’ guys being bullied (or worse) if they’re even slightly different from the perceived norm in any way. Neither of these has been my experience.
However, that's about my only gripe, and maybe it's true in the United States. Far more importantly, I could totally empathise with the expressed problems related to parenting - of doing what seems best at the time, of wanting our children to be happy, and yet not wanting to make things so easy for them that they flounder when anything goes wrong.
The subject is controversial, but I hope even the most conservative of readers would approach it with an open mind, and accept it for what it is - a story that is both fictional and real about a loving family who seem to do everything right, other than keeping a secret for longer than it should be kept.
Very thought-provoking, a book I would recommend highly to anyone who likes women’s fiction that covers difficult or controversial issues.
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